“There is no evidence that Luke produced a portrait of Christ. There were no images of Christ in the 2nd century. Eusebius refused a request to create one in the 4th century. When images began to appear in the late patristic and early medieval periods, they were hotly controversial. They did not become widespread until after the 8th century.”

The earliest post-apostolic Christians (some of whom are denominated the Apostolic Fathers) knew of an apostolic tradition but they did not know about a secret and unwritten apostolic tradition on the authority of which the church could justify virtually anything it wanted. Remarkably, however, over time this is just what happened in the life of the church. In preparation for the annual conference this Friday and Saturday (January 13–14, 2017) I have been looking at Thomas Aquinas’ appeal to an unwritten tradition to justify practices that he freely admits are not biblical. In Summa Theologica 3^a 25.3, where he was defending the veneration of the cross, he faced a very sensible and eminently biblical objection:

Further, it seems that nothing should be done in the Divine worship that is not instituted by God; wherefore the Apostle (1 Cor. 11:23) when about to lay down the doctrine of the sacrifice of the Church, says: I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you. But Scripture does not lay down anything concerning the adoration of images. Therefore Christ’s image is not to be adored with the adoration of latria. (Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province (London: Burns Oates & Washbourne, n.d.)).

Remarkably, this is a fair summary of the approach employed both by Scripture and the early post-apostolic Christians to the question of faith and practice. The test used in Acts, in the Epistles, and by the early post-Apostolic Christians was: is it biblical? Is it commanded by Scripture? Scripture not only says nothing about the adoration of images it positively prohibits in in the 2nd commandment of the moral law and in countless other places.

To which Thomas replied:

Reply Obj. 4. The Apostles, led by the inward instinct of the Holy Ghost [Spirit], handed down to the churches certain instructions which they did not put in writing, but which have been ordained, in accordance with the observance of the Church as practised by the faithful as time went on. Wherefore the Apostle says (2 Thess. 2:14): Stand fast; and hold the traditions which you have learned, whether by word—that is by word of mouth—or by our epistle—that is by word put into writing. Among these traditions is the worship of Christ’s image. Wherefore it is said that Blessed Luke painted the image of Christ, which is in Rome. (ibid.).

There are several things to notice here. First, note that Thomas first appealed to what is essentially a subjective, unverifiable principle and claim: “the inward instinct” of the Holy Spirit. The genius of such an appeal is that it is difficult to gainsay. If you tell me that you have had a subjective experience I may doubt it but how can I say definitively that it did not happen? In this case, however, we have an objective test by which we can measure this claim of a tradition generated by the “inward prompting” of the Spirit. We have Holy Scripture which is inspired by the Spirit himself. God’s Word says of itself: “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (2 Tim 3:16–17; ESV. Emphasis added). The Apostles wrote Scripture as they were “carried along” by the Spirit (2 Pet 1:21). Scripture itself testifies to the work of the Spirit in the Apostles to produce Scripture, not in the production of extra-canonical, secret, unwritten traditions.

Second, notice how Thomas appeals to Scripture to justify the existence of such a tradition. He appeals to the 2 Thessalonians 2:14 to justify his assumption that such a tradition exists but nothing about Paul’s language in 1 Thessalonians remotely supports his claim. The theology, piety, and practice that Paul handed over (traditio) to the Thessalonian Christians is essentially preserved for us in Holy Scripture. The claim that there secretly preserved traditions, prompted by the Holy Spirit, is sheer speculation and imagination.  In fact, we have no actual evidence from Scripture that there was ever any such tradition of the veneration of the cross. There is no evidence that the cross was venerated in the early post-apostolic church. It was used as a Christian symbol but it was not venerated. Indeed, the very distinction between “worship” and “veneration” on which Thomas’ argument rests is not a biblical or even early Christian distinction. It was a medieval distinction.

There is no evidence that Luke produced a portrait of Christ. There were no images of Christ in the 2nd century. Eusebius refused a request to create one in the 4th century. When images began to appear in the late patristic and early medieval periods, they were hotly controversial. They did not become widespread until after the 8th century.

The objection that Thomas faces here is the very objection the earliest Christians made. The evidence is that they adhered to what they called the “rule of faith” (regula fidei). They held to it so strongly that they did in worship only what is commanded in Scripture. One of the most important arguments in the 2nd century was about when to observe the resurrection of our Lord. It became so heated it nearly caused a schism. Why? It was about the regulatory authority of God’s Word. Whether God’s Word regulated worship was not in question. How God’s Word regulated worship was in debate. The doctrine and practice that the Scripture is the rule of the Christian faith and the Christian life is principle that Calvin and the Reformed recovered in the 16th century.

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